| 抄録 |
Thirteen years have passed since the Soviet Union disintegrated and the fifteen former national republics in the USSR became independent. The processes and results of this independence are very diverse in each republic. Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Tajikistan experienced disastrous interethnic or interregional conflicts, but the Baltic States transformed their systems relatively smoothly. Political pluralism penetrated states such as Russia, but "Sultanic" presidents installed dictatorships in Belarus and Turkmenistan. Kazakhstan has attained independence peacefully without serious incidents, and interethnic relationships have been stable since independence. Nazarbaev, the president of Kazakhstan today, is strengthening his authoritarian regime day-by-day. This political situation in Kazakhstan after independence was largely determined by the political history in the final days of the Soviet period. From this perspective, the author examined the politics of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan (CPK) and the Moscow-Kazakhstan relationship from the beginning of the 1980s through September 1991. The author wrote this article as a case study about the regional (republican) policy of Soviet political history (Sovietology). Two approaches of Sovietology were combined in this article, one which analyzes political processes with careful readings of periodicals of the time, and the other which indicates changes of biographical characteristics of the CPK elites. The author divided the party elites into two categories of "the members and candidates of the Bureau of the Central Committee (CC) of the CPK" and "the first secretaries of obkoms (provincial committees)." Over 100 people (129 in total) constituted these party elites for the 12 years from 1980. The characteristics of the party elites in total significantly changed in 1985, 1986, and 1989. Considering this and the timing of the changes of the first secretaries of the CPK, the author divided the targeted 12 years into the four periods of the later stage of the Kunaev period (1980-1984), the final days of the Kunaev period (1985-December, 1986), the Kolbin period (December, 1986-June, 1989), and the Nazarbaev period (June, 1989-September, 1991). Then the author examined specificities of the party cadre policy and the Moscow-Kazakhstan relationship per period, in which periodicals of that time such as Kazakhstanskaia Pravda were mainly utilized as the primary sources. In the first period, the CPK, which Kunaev stood at the center of, enjoyed a certain degree of political autonomy from Moscow. This autonomy, however, did not result in the so-called "Kunaev's emirate." Rather, under the principle of "collectivity," the CPK leadership accepted factors like interest groups in Kazakhstan, which personnel networks and patron-client relationships had been constructed under. Kunaev's power and authority were overwhelming because he was very closely related with his patron, Brezhnev, and he himself was also a member of the Politburo in Moscow. Nevertheless, factors like protectionism and personal connections intervened in the cadre policy among the other party leaders as well as between Kunaev and his inner circle. The authority of the party and its elites was very strong through the Brezhnev era. Party organs sometimes went beyond the commission of local soviets and ministries (podmena in Russian). Podmena blurred the functions between the party and other institutions. In the second period, the CPK lost its autonomy in the party cadre policy, and Moscow started cutting into the vested interests of the Union republics, especially after Gorbachev's perestroika set in. The origin of this re-centralization dated back to the anti-corruption campaign, which began on a large scale in summer 1984, which was the Chernenko era. This recentralization policy for the federal republics was indispensable for advancing Gorbachev's perestroika policy, which included his acceleration strategy for the Soviet economy. Many local elites were fired and severely denounced during 1985-1986, which, nevertheless, almost excessively concentrated upon Kunaev's clients. In the third period, Kolbin, a stranger to Kazakhstani, destroyed the legitimacy of the former Kunaev's leadership, and accelerated the personnel changes in the lower party organizations under the protection of Politburo members in Moscow. They, however, could not completely subordinate the local party organizations in Kazakhstan to Moscow, as they had intended. On the contrary, Kolbin had to cooperate with local party elites in order to spread economic and political reforms in Kazakhstan. The appointment of Kolbin to first secretary of the CC of the CPK itself was also the mopping-up of cadre shifts on the level of the party elites in Kazakhstan, since only two "brought-on" cadres except for Kolbin worked as the party elites in this period. Some partial institutional reforms of cadre policy such as renewing the personnel evaluation system and setting-up credential committees in party organs almost ended in vain. From June 1988, the party elites started demanding economic decentralization at first, and finally political decentralization. According to the resolution at the 19th Conference of the CPSU in June-July 1988, the party should have quit intervening in economic affairs, which were legally under the jurisdiction of the ministries and local soviets. With the tide of decentralization, however, the party elites began to openly resist accepting such regulation from Moscow and to justify their close, often collusive, relationships with soviets and economic sectors. Ethnically Kazakh elites, and non-Kazakh elites, most of whom were born outside of Kazakhstan, began to call out for their interests in Kazakhstan and their oblast. Moreover, Moscow reduced its control of the Union republics including the control on local cadre policy, which, in turn, chipped away at Kolbin's authority in Kazakhstan. Moscow's permanent backing was indispensable for Kolbin. In the fourth period, the CPK leadership completely regained the power to shuffle personnel in the republic. The discussion about economic and political decentralization evolved into the sovereign issue of the Union republics. Nazarbaev consolidated his power base and constructed his own personal connection network, installing the cadres nearest to him as heads of the party (second secretary of the CC), the government, and the assembly. In January 1990, all obkom first secretaries were recommended as the chairmen of their oblast' soviets, as regulated by the resolution of the 19th Conference of the CPSU, all of whom were elected as chairmen. Podmena was institutionalized by this very election. They gathered around Nazarbaev to overcome political and economic crisis during the final stage of perestroika. Thus, Nazarbaev attained extensive political authority in Kazakhstan, which set the stage for his future authoritarian governance after independence. Finally, the author would like to emphasize that an overwhelming majority of the CPK elites enhanced their careers inside Kazakhstan alone, which, in turn, revealed that they, including non-Russians, took root in Kazakhstan. Non-Kazakh as well as Kazakh party elites were tied firmly with common interests in Kazakhstan, and they developed close partnerships with each other. These good relationships between the party elites had already been created in the Kunaev period, and they became the opposition elements against economic and political centralization by the Moscow-Kolbin coalition. Their "regional" solidarity within the Soviet Union transformed itself into a "national" solidarity in the final days of the Soviet regime. Furthermore, the interethnic partnership at the party elite level was one factor for Kazakhstan to smoothly establish independence and systemic transition without wholesale interethnic clashes at the level of the mass population or among political elites. Institutionalization of podmena also contributed to the solidification of local political elites around Nazarbaev to overcome diverse problems at the end of perestroika and after independence.
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